The main contact person for the Recorded Books project should have received an email this morning, June 28, with a survey link.
Our subscription with Recorded Books is up for renewal in September, and we are looking for feedback from member libraries on the program. Please be sure to locate the email and fill out the survey, which should take less than 10 minutes if you have downloaded a title from Recorded Books before (the survey asks you to do so if you have not, so that we can get a good feel for the experience with everyone's answers).
Thanks!
28 June 2010
23 June 2010
New Additions to Listen Up!
While we've been reshuffling the buying duties for Listen Up! Vermont, I've been remiss at posting our newest additions to the collection. Here's what was added for May and June:
We've also been trying to keep up with the holds: the Steig Larsson books all have large holds lists, as do other popular new titles, such as Lee Child's 61 Hours. While we do purchase additional copies to meet holds and try to maintain about a 5:1 ratio of requests to holds, occasionally these very popular titles have higher ratios, since we generally will not purchase more than 3 additional copies (for a total of four copies).
Please advise your patrons to place themselves on the holds list and use the advanced search feature to find titles that are currently available or, if you are a Recorded Books One Click subscriber, to check out that collection, so they can download something today.
| A Question of Belief | Donna Leon |
| Beautiful Maria of My Soul | Oscar Hijuelos |
| Between Two Worlds | Roxana Saberi |
| Broken | Karin Slaughter |
| Caught | Harlan Coben |
| Dead Lie Down | Sophie Hannah |
| Deliver Us from Evil | David Baldacci |
| Executive Intent | Dale Brown |
| Family Ties | Danielle Steel |
| Fantasy in Death | J.D. Robb |
| For the Win | Cory Doctorow |
| Gimme A Call | Sarah Mlynowski |
| Gourmet Rhapsody | Muriel Barbery |
| Heart of the Matter | Emily Giffin |
| High Society | Donald Spoto |
| Innocent | Scott Turow |
| Instructions | Neil Gaiman |
| Love in the Afternoon | Lisa Kleypas |
| Married by Morning | Lisa Kleypas |
| Murder in the High Himalayas | Jonathan Green |
| Pray for Silence | Linda Castillo |
| Sizzling Sixteen | Janet Evanovich |
| Something Like Fate | Susane Colasanti |
| Split Image | Robert B. Parker |
| Still Missing | Chevy Stevens |
| That Perfect Someone | Johanna Lindsey |
| The Brazen Bride | Stephanie Laurens |
| The Cardturner | Louis Sachar |
| The Carrie Diaries | Candace Bushnell |
| The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity | Mac Barnett |
| The Devil Amongst the Lawyers | Sharyn McCrumb |
| The Last Child | John Hart |
| The Light | D. J. MacHale |
| The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death | Charlie Huston |
| The Postmistress | Sarah Blake |
| The Red Pyramid | Rick Riordan |
| The Ring of Rocamadour | Michael D. Beil |
| The Rule of Nine | Steve Martini |
| The Search | Nora Roberts |
| The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner | Stephenie Meyer |
| The Spy | Clive Cussler |
| Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer | John Grisham |
| To Desire a Devil | Elizabeth Hoyt |
| Turtle in Paradise | Jennifer L. Holm |
| Vanished Smile | R.A. Scotti |
| War | Sebastian Junger |
| White Cat | Holly Black |
| Wicked Lovely | Melissa Marr |
| Worst Case | James Patterson |
Please advise your patrons to place themselves on the holds list and use the advanced search feature to find titles that are currently available or, if you are a Recorded Books One Click subscriber, to check out that collection, so they can download something today.
16 June 2010
OverDrive: The Three Steps to Solve Almost Any DRM Problem
The support questions we receive for Listen Up! Vermont, powered by OverDrive, almost always fall into the category of problems related to Digital Rights Management, or DRM. You can help your patrons be successful in resolving their issue by suggesting they try these three steps first:
The downloadable media process is full of places where things can go wrong, because there are so many steps. It may help to understand that DRM is a requirement of the publisher; the format an item is released in is also determined by the publisher. The industry as a whole needs to decide to move to a unified format, as most eBook publishers have done by choosing EPUB.
Right now, in this relatively new circulating format, the model we have is the best we've got, where OverDrive is attempting to please both the wishes of publishers (to prevent piracy) and librarians (to be able to make available and circulate materials without draining the budget). Our patrons, the majority of which are not as tech savvy as their librarian, unfortunately are stuck in the middle.
As with anything in technology, don't forget the old standby of turning off the machine, counting to ten, and turning it back on. A reboot can do wonders. Don't forget to take advantage of the training sessions when they are offered.
And, as with anything in customer service, empathizing with your patron, apologizing ("I am sorry you had such as frustrating experience."), and offering to help walk them through the process does wonders.
- Talk to your patron. Are they trying to download a format that works on their computer? A format that will work on their player? WMA and mp3 formatted titles will work on an iPod if transferred through a PC. Mac users can only access mp3 formatted titles. Users with iPod Touches and iPhones and Andriod phones using the OverDrive Media Console app need to first find an item to download in the browser on their phone, and the item must be in mp3 format (it will download directly to the device when using the app, light years easier than downloading to your computer and transferring).
- Open up the OverDrive Media Console and click on the Tools menu. Choose "Windows Media Player Security Upgrade." This will automatically open Windows Media Player and update the DRM permissions; more often than not, this will solve the issue. Sometimes, the upgrade needs to be initiated manually; go to (in Internet Explorer only): http://drmlicense.one.microsoft.com/Indivsite
- Still not working? We all know Windows can be a little cranky. OverDrive then recommends resetting the DRM folder:
1. Open the 'Control Panel'.
2. Open 'Folder Options' and select the 'View' tab.
3. Select 'Show hidden files and folders'.
4. Uncheck 'Hide protected operating system files'.
5. In the warning message you receive, click 'Yes'.
6. Click 'OK'.
7. Close the Control Panel
8. Rename the DRM folder to DRM.old.
(You can find the folder most often under C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\ DRM)
9. Close this window and open OverDrive Media Console.
10. Go to “Tools > Windows Media Player Security Upgrade” (as above).
The downloadable media process is full of places where things can go wrong, because there are so many steps. It may help to understand that DRM is a requirement of the publisher; the format an item is released in is also determined by the publisher. The industry as a whole needs to decide to move to a unified format, as most eBook publishers have done by choosing EPUB.
Right now, in this relatively new circulating format, the model we have is the best we've got, where OverDrive is attempting to please both the wishes of publishers (to prevent piracy) and librarians (to be able to make available and circulate materials without draining the budget). Our patrons, the majority of which are not as tech savvy as their librarian, unfortunately are stuck in the middle.
As with anything in technology, don't forget the old standby of turning off the machine, counting to ten, and turning it back on. A reboot can do wonders. Don't forget to take advantage of the training sessions when they are offered.
And, as with anything in customer service, empathizing with your patron, apologizing ("I am sorry you had such as frustrating experience."), and offering to help walk them through the process does wonders.
01 June 2010
Recorded Books One Click Additions for June
Added to the Recorded Books collection:
Adults:
Children & YA:
Titles marked with a * are iPod compatible.
Adults:
| Apothecary’s Daughter, The* | Klassen, Julie |
| Blood Detective* | Waddell, Dan |
| Blood on the Gallows* | Compton, Ralph |
| Confession, The (Heritage of Lancaster County Bk #2)* | Lewis, Beverly |
| Diamond Star* | Asaro, Catherine |
| Every Man Dies Alone* | Fallada, Hans |
| Firefight* | Ryan, Chris |
| Halting State* | Stross, Charles |
| Heaven’s Reach (Uplift Trilogy Bk #3) | Brin, David |
| In Love With a Younger Man* | Robinson, Cheryl |
| Little Black Girl Lost #5* | Johnson, Keith Lee |
| Moloka’I* | Brennert, Alan |
| Murder in the Marais* | Black, Cara |
| Naming of the Dead | Rankin, Ian |
| Night Music* | Moyes, Jojo |
| Preacher’s Passion, A* | Lovely, Lutishia |
| Promise for Spring, A* | Sawyer, Kim Vogel |
| Rich Man’s Baby* | Poole, Daaimah |
| Say It Ain’t So* | Hunt, La Jill |
| Second Husband, The* | Candish, Louise |
| Showdown at Hole-in-the Wall* | Cotton, Ralph |
| Silent Spirit, The | Coel, Margaret |
| State Fair | Fowler, Earlene |
| Tale of Briar Bank, The* | Albert, Susan Wittig |
| Too Long a Stranger* | Oke, Janette |
| Underground (Greywalker Bk #3)* | Richardson, Kat |
| Where the Line Bleeds* | Ward, Jesmyn |
| Whiter Than Snow* | Dallas, Sandra |
| Widow and the Tree, The* | Brewer, Sonny |
| Zen in the Art of Vampires* | MacAlister, Katie |
Children & YA:
| Annie & Snowball: The Prettiest House | Lasky, Kathryn |
| Lockdown* | Rylant, Cynthia |
| Night Fairy, The* | Myers, Walter Dean |
| One Beetle Too Many | Schlitz, Laura Amy |
| Phineas Gage | Fleischman, John |
| Sisters Club, The* | McDonald, Megan |
| Wild Things* | Carmichael, Clay |
Titles marked with a * are iPod compatible.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)